Nina Totenberg
Nina Totenberg is NPR's award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Her reports air regularly on NPR's critically acclaimed newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition.
Totenberg's coverage of the Supreme Court and legal affairs has won her widespread recognition. She is often featured in documentaries — most recently RBG — that deal with issues before the court. As Newsweek put it, "The mainstays [of NPR] are Morning Edition and All Things Considered. But the creme de la creme is Nina Totenberg."
In 1991, her ground-breaking report about University of Oklahoma Law Professor Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment by Judge Clarence Thomas led the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings to consider Hill's charges. NPR received the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for its gavel-to-gavel coverage — anchored by Totenberg — of both the original hearings and the inquiry into Anita Hill's allegations, and for Totenberg's reports and exclusive interview with Hill.
That same coverage earned Totenberg additional awards, including the Long Island University George Polk Award for excellence in journalism; the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting; the Carr Van Anda Award from the Scripps School of Journalism; and the prestigious Joan S. Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based national affairs/public policy reporting, which also acknowledged her coverage of Justice Thurgood Marshall's retirement.
Totenberg was named Broadcaster of the Year and honored with the 1998 Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcasting from the National Press Foundation. She is the first radio journalist to receive the award. She is also the recipient of the American Judicature Society's first-ever award honoring a career body of work in the field of journalism and the law. In 1988, Totenberg won the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her coverage of Supreme Court nominations. The jurors of the award stated, "Ms. Totenberg broke the story of Judge (Douglas) Ginsburg's use of marijuana, raising issues of changing social values and credibility with careful perspective under deadline pressure."
Totenberg has been honored seven times by the American Bar Association for continued excellence in legal reporting and has received more than two dozen honorary degrees. On a lighter note, Esquiremagazine twice named her one of the "Women We Love."
A frequent contributor on TV shows, she has also written for major newspapers and periodicals — among them, The New York Times Magazine, The Harvard Law Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and New York Magazine, and others.
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The court's 5-to-3 ruling came in the case of a man who had lived in the U.S. for 25 years but who had used a fake Social Security card to get a job as a janitor. -
The court heard arguments in a case that could allow state legislatures to make it more difficult for some to vote. The arguments centered on a key portion of the Voting Rights Act.
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In 2013, the court gutted a key provision of the law, citing that Section 2 of the act still bars discrimination in voting nationwide. Now, Section 2 is in the conservative court's crosshairs.
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The Court Justices ponder What makes a hot pursuit, "hot?" Pursuing a suspect for a noise violation, a highway patrol officer entered a suspect's home without a warrant.
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The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case involving an officer who pursued a misdemeanor suspect into his home without a warrant. Civil liberties groups say the case could expand police powers.
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The U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for a New York grand jury to get former President Donald Trump's financial records. It also said it will hear a case involving a Trump-era rule on abortion.
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With Judge David Tatel stepping down, and Judge Merrick Garland set to become Attorney General, expect Katanji Brown Jackson to fill one of the slots. She's also a potential Supreme Court nominee.
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Judge David Tatel's decision to take senior status opens a second vacancy on the D.C. circuit, giving President Biden a boost in filling judicial nominations.
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A constitutional law professor whose work is cited extensively by Trump lawyers in their impeachment defense brief says his work has been seriously misrepresented.
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The court sided with two churches that said a ban on indoor church services violated their rights to free exercise of religion. But the justices let stand restrictions that cap attendance at 25%.
